Handbook of social economy: or, the worker’s ABC. . . .

New York: D. Appleton and Co., 549 & 551 Broadway, 1873. 8vo. xx, 284 pp., plus 8 pp. publisher’s ads. Plum-coloured pebbled publisher’s cloth, embossed borders front & back covers, gilt lettering on spine (minor chipping head & foot of spine, slight sunning, edgewear, w/o ffep.), still a VG- copy, from the libraries of H.M. Hosick (1845-1935), noted dealer in leathers, furs & hides in Chicago, IL, and Jean F. Carroll (1900-1973), former Kroger Executive, and son of Iowa Governor Beryl F. Carroll (1860-1939). First American edition of this significant French work on labor unions, labor organizing, originally published as L’ABC du travailleur in 1868, drawing from interviews by the author with Parisian workers, artisans, and laborers. Prepared against the backdrop of the attempted reforms by Napoleon III during the Second Empire, there had been passed an 1864 right to strike law, but workers could decide whether to participate independently, and still restricted from freedom, while many laws controlling what licenses and papers workers had to retain, whether they could change employers, and much more were still in place. The United States itself had become swept up in massive labor strikes and unrest beginning with July, 1871 labor strikes at the New Albany Glass Works, and others built up to the 1873 Great Railroad strikes following the implosion of the Railroad Building Boom that set off a recession from 1873-1878 in the United States. It’s estimated that over $ 40 billion in property was destroyed during the subsequent unrest over several years. About (1828-1885) was a French journalist, novelist, and publicist, who was quite successful, with short stories, and pamphlets, as well as popular manuals on labor and economics, before becoming successful with his XIX Siecle paper which protested against conservative reactionaries following the Franco-Prussian War. The original American edition in English is quite scarce.